Schoeck brings glass fibre rebar to the Middle East
One of the primary causes of damage to concrete structures is the corrosion of the steel reinforcement. This is especially true in harsh environments such as the hot and humid climate encountered in the Middle East. The newly developed glass fibre reinforcing bar, Schoeck ComBAR, now provides designing engineers and owners in the Middle East with a guaranteed solution to this problem. To do so effectively the Schoeck Middle East FZE was founded in 2010 to service the entire Middle East region.
Corrosion of the steel reinforcing bars is one of the primary deterioration mechanisms in reinforced concrete structures. This is especially true in harsh environment encountered throughout the Middle East. It is not uncommon that concrete structures there require extensive maintenance and repairs as early as ten years after going into service.
Various measures are undertaken today to mitigate rebar corrosion ranging from the installation of epoxy coated or stainless steel rebars to the sealing of the entire surface of the concrete structure. With the development and market introduction of high strength glass fibre reinforcing bars a new, highly durable solution is now available which completely eliminates the deterioration process rebar corrosion.
Solution to corrosion
Schoeck ComBAR is a reinforcing bar made of highly corrosion resistant glass fibres and an extremely durable diffusion tight Vinylester resin matrix. The material is much stronger and stiffer than commonly known glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars. The high fibre content and the linear alignment of the fibres are achieved in the so called pultrusion process which is used in the production of the bars. Helical ribs are cut into the hardened bars to insure an optimal bond between the rebars and the surrounding concrete. This is essential when the bars are to be placed close to the concrete surface or in slender concrete elements, such as facade plates and pilasters. The finished bars are then coated to guarantee their extreme durability even in chemically aggressive environments.
Schoeck in the Middle East
To bring ComBAR and the associated benefits to the Middle East the renowned German company Schoeck Bauteile GmbH founded a sales office in Dubai, the Schoeck Middle East FZE, in early 2010. "When we brought ComBAR to the Middle East our primary focus was providing the highest possible quality technical consultation services to our customers," commented Managing Director of Schoeck ME Dipl.-Ing. Christoph Spitz. "We believe that this is an ideal solution to the woes of many developers, designers and engineers in this region and we are fully committed to serving this region to an international standard."
ComBAR has been certified in Germany, the Netherlands, the US and in Canada, according to European and North American codes and guidelines. In the Middle East it has been certified by the Dubai Municipality and tested at The King Fahd University and at the Arab Center for Engineering Studies in Doha, Qatar.
Durability and material tests
ComBAR bars are durability tested under load at elevated temperatures in moist concrete according to the testing concept published by the International Federation for Structural Concrete (fib) in their Technical Bulletin 40. A large number of bars are tested to failure during this procedure. The applied stresses are plotted as a function of the time to failure on a doubly logarithmic scale. From the data points the so called time-to-failure line is determined. The characteristic values of the tensile strength of the material can then be extrapolated using this line for the tested environmental conditions. This can be done for design service life spans of up to 100 years. The 100 year values are specified in the technical documentation of ComBAR.
Applications
In highly corrosive environments the installation of ComBAR bars insures a greatly extended service life of concrete structures, minimizing the required maintenance and repair cycles and thereby reducing the overall lifecycle costs. For this reason ComBAR was installed at the Sea Front Restoration Project in Blackpool, England and at the Royal Villa in Qatar.
In addition to being corrosion resistant, ComBAR is also non-magnetic and does not conduct electric currents. For these reasons it is often installed in electrical facilities near or below machines operating under high currents, such as transformers and reactors, eliminating stray currents and the associated energy losses in the machinery. ComBAR has been installed in the floor slab of the rectifier area of the Qatar Aluminium factory and in several reactor buildings throughout Europe.
Other fields of application of ComBAR include tunnelling projects, where the bars are installed in the areas of concrete diaphragm and drilled pile walls which are to be penetrated by the tunnel boring machine, and in infrastructure projects such as rail ways, where the material is installed because of its electromagnetic properties. For the same reason the material is also installed in research institutions and hospitals in the vicinity of electromagnetically sensitive machinery such as Transfer Electron Microscopes.
-Ends-
Schoeck Bauteile GmbH is a well established international supplier to the building industry. Schoeck develops, produces and markets innovative components for structural applications with additional thermal and acoustic benefits. The family-owned company focus on innovative solutions for the prevention of thermal bridges and impact noise in buildings. Headquartered in south-western Germany, Schoeck produces and distributes the Isokorb - a load bearing thermal insulation element for the prevention of thermal bridges in cantilever components made of concrete, steel and wood - and several other reinforcing products throughout Europe, Russia, Japan, South Korea and Canada. With more than 500 employees Schoeck has installed its components in more than 10 million projects worldwide. In 2012 the company will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary.
© Press Release 2011
